New Great Perks for Family Friendly Companies

As you know I love talking about family friendly companies and giving kudos to those companies who follow family friendly policies. My big daydream is that one day, when my girls are in school, I can turn my home based business into a company housed in a small brick building, and that I will have the need to hire a few employees. For those employees I want to provide wonderful family friendly perks, of course, so each time I read about family friendly companies and the incentives that they offer I make a list of what I would offer should my dream ever come true.

Yesterday I picked up a copy of our local parenting magazine in Orange County and they had listed a few OC family friendly companies and the perks that they offer. Among them was CHOC, or Children’s Hospital of Orange County. CHOC offers free massages. What a perk is this! Something I would have never thought about, but can you imagine working for a company that offered free massages form time to time? Suddenly I saw myself in my little brick building along with my two or three employees, and it is Friday afternoon and up pulls the mobile spa van and in comes the masseuse to give us all massages. (Yes, I do have an overactive imagination!)

A few other perks listed for different companies in this issue included a 1 PM early ending time on Fridays during the summer.How great would that be, to shave off four hours and spend that time with the family or doing something for yourself? Google’s Irvine office offers free Internet access to workers. You say they should, of course, considering who they are, but any company hiring researchers or people who will be using the Internet a lot for work could provide free Internet. It isn’t that costly for the company and it’s always a great incentive when you give something to the employees for free.

I’m still adding perk ideas to my list, which of course includes onsite daycare and a mother/father and baby room for feedings, playing, and nursing. If you find any that you love, send them to me and I will include them in a future post. And if you are a business owner that has a few employees on site, consider adding a few perks yourself-I bet they boost morale tenfold!